I would prefer a thick crust please
The ultimate comfort food dish
Mushrooms and olives will appease
I would prefer a thick crust please
Make mine with traditional cheese
Pepperoni extra delish
I would prefer a thick crust please
The ultimate comfort food dish
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Triolet quadrille written for dVerse Poetics (pepper).
I am very pleased that AI art has finally discovered most human hands have four fingers and a thumb. Who knows what it will learn next? The possibilities are endless!
In Lady Jabberwocky’s Prompt of the Week series, she asks who is our favorite fictional detective and why?
My answer is a tie between Lieutenant Frank Columbo, played by Peter Falk (RIP), and Archy McNally. I’m sure most of you have heard of Columbo and have seen at least one TV episode starring Peter Falk in his famous rumpled raincoat as he asks a criminal seemingly clueless questions that get sharper as the criminal grows more nervous. Surely we all are familiar with his catch phrase: “Just one more thing…” Great shows! Very entertaining and I would watch them again. The character was created by Richard Levinson and William Link.
Archy McNally is a literary character created by the late writer Lawrence Sanders. I fell in love with Sanders’ writing prior to Archy while reading his Edward X. Delaney series. Sanders wrote his first novel, The Anderson Tapes, at the ancient age of 50 and received an Edgar Award for it in 1971 from the Mystery Writers of America. He began the McNally series in 1991 with McNally’s Secret. Archy is the son of a prominent Palm Beach attorney, who is extremely ethical in his professional life and has strict habits in his personal life as well. Archy however is prone to shenanigans and got expelled from Yale Law for streaking.
Though he is not an attorney, Archy works for his father’s law firm investigating odd happenings around Palm Beach that his father doesn’t want to touch. Archy heads the “Discreet Inquiries” department, and is in fact the only member. He is brilliant, funny, loves his parents, especially his sweet mother, overindulges in food and drink, and constantly spouts witty turns of phrase, particularly in the private journal he keeps of his cases. We might think of him today as a “failure to launch” due to the fact that at age 36 he’s still living with his parents. Archy is apparently handsome (the narration is first person, but we can infer), stays in pretty good shape via a daily swim in the ocean, and is a ladies man who has trouble staying faithful to his girlfriend Connie ~ but he makes such persuasive amends that she always takes him back. He’s the epitome of the charming rogue.
After Sanders’ death in 1998, the McNally series was taken over by writer Vincent Lardo, who did a good job, but it was never the same.
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.
This barely rises to the level of a peeve ~ it’s really more of a very minor, very fleeting nuisance ~ yet because I encounter it all the time here in Blogland, I figured it deserved a spot on TMP rotation. Also, I can’t think of anything else right now!
When some bloggers respond to a prompt, they copy and paste so much of the prompt post into their new post that it takes a minute to actually find what the heck they wrote. Some C&P multiple paragraphs just to post “an American sentence” or a haiku. The explanation is ten times as long as their response. At least put it at the end of the post, not the beginning! But there’s no reason to do so much C&P in the first place when you can simply link to the original post with a brief explanation. If people want to read more or participate themselves, they can visit the host post to get the full set of details.
That’s what I do, so it is obviously the Best Way.
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
My habits bounce around a narrow range of boundaries. For example, I need caffeine in the morning, which usually takes the form of coffee, but sometimes when it’s warmer I have a Diet Coke instead. Today I had regular Coke because it was left over from my game night. I would never do something crazy like make a smoothie. Sometimes I might read a book after work, other times I blog or work on my never-ending book-in-progress, and occasionally I watch TV. Very rarely do I get involved in a social event on a work night, which I define as Sunday through Thursday. I make some exceptions for book clubs and other meetups, a couple times per month. Mostly I don’t like to make plans for Friday night either because I know I’ll be tired. But there are random exceptions there too such as last week because an interesting movie was available. I don’t date because drama, and I don’t exercise because meh. I do randomly put on music and dance around though, when I’m alone, which counts for something.
I am a huge fan of online calendars and reminders, along with color codes, not that I’m super consistent with color coding because I find it’s more practical to have different colors for consecutive events to make them stand out. I check my calendar all the time, like some people obsessively check their blog stats or the stock market. I’ve made it a habit to put everything on the calendar as a reminder (either my personal one or my office one or both) because I’m super paranoid about forgetting anything. Beyond those two calendars, I also have to-do lists, at home and at work. It’s sometimes more helpful to have an ongoing task that I update week to week, or month to month in the case of bill-paying, than an entry on the calendar to pop up at me ~ and I’m always checking my “doozies” too. For example, I know that I need to write my Monday Peeve soon, since it’s Sunday. I might have forgotten, due to the long weekend, but I just checked my doozies, and there it is.
Shopping lists are a must, and I usually go to the grocery store early Saturday morning or sometimes Sunday. If I know I’m going to have a busy weekend, I will sometimes order groceries at Target to be picked up, but I can’t get bananas that way because they give me icky ones. Generally, I get the same or very similar groceries every week: fruit, tortillas or some type of bread product, frozen dinners for lunch, milk, protein bars, and paper products/staples like peanut butter, if needed. I eat eggs pretty often, and was going to have two yesterday for brunch, but they got frozen and didn’t poach properly. I was afraid to eat them and threw them out. Then I had peanut butter and jam on my English muffin, which kind of messed up my whole day, but it worked out all right in the end, and I won all the games.
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Written for MLMM Sunday Confessionals, hosted by Oloriel.
This is the açaí bowl I ordered Friday night at the 4th Street Marketplace in Santa Ana. I met up with some peeps to see a movie, and we ate first. Most of the offerings were of the fried, salty variety, and I don’t like to eat that kind of stuff at night, or ever, ideally. So I opted for this light and refreshing treat at the waffle place. It was delicious!
I’m tagging this as “ice cream,” but while it looks and tastes like ice cream, it’s really puréed berries. So good. Try it!
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Posted for John’s Cellpic Sunday.
Sadje continues her Sunday Poser series by asking about our stat-checking habits:
Do you check your blog stats often? And does it make a difference to you, if people are visiting your blog more or less?
I do check my stats pretty often, at least once a day. I find it interesting to know which posts get the most views ~ if they are mine, like the Monday Peeve, or responses to prompts, or what. While I have fun occasionally shoveling a bunch of word prompts into a story or poem, those posts generally do not get a large number of views. I still create them when I feel like it ~ the numbers don’t change that ~ but I am aware that other posts will be more widely read.
The annoying Mr. Linky actually is helpful in generating more views; when I have a link there for one of David’s W3 challenges, a Tanka Tuesday, or a Moonwashed Musing, I get many more views than on a non-linky post. Most of my posts are in the writing and poetry categories/tags, so it’s no surprise that those are the most popular. There are simply more of them. I get an average of 54 likes per post and 22 comments, which isn’t a lot compared to other bloggers, but I’m OK with it. I would be concerned if those numbers began dropping and would try to figure out why.
When I replied to the WordPress Daily Prompt by allowing their tags to remain, I received a boatload of views, likes, and comments. I don’t do that now because I find it utterly pointless. Those folks didn’t follow me or read other things I wrote. Sadness. Now when I respond to a DP, which isn’t that often because they are either too silly or too personal, I remove the extra numbered tag. I keep the daily tag because that one is for me and doesn’t seem to attract the crazy amount of views. I also don’t auto-post to Facebook, and it’s rare that I will alert FB friends to a post, simply because it’s too annoying that they won’t respond HERE in the comments, but instead they insist on replying on FB, and then I have two chats going, which infuriates me. In any case, including FB would only increase my follower count by a mere blip.
Unlike what everyone else keeps stating (not that I believe them), I want my blog posts to be seen and read. If I didn’t care and wrote “only for myself,” I wouldn’t bother with a blog. I’d keep all my stuff in Word, which would be much easier than posting to the world. Plus I wouldn’t pay for a WP plan. Not only do I hope my posts are read, I also don’t want them to be followed by foot fungus ads, which are disgusting and ruin the spirit of a lovely poem, in my opinion.
I have had this blog since March 2011, and 10 years later in March 2021, it was time for a refresh. I deleted all my posts and kept only those that I really liked to reshare beginning that April. I also had my James Bond April A-Z going, which was so much fun. It was my favorite A-Z so far, though the Eagles were a close second, and next year’s Sweets & Songs should be excellent too. This year’s nopes were pretty meh, though I still made a tab for them to be consistent. Later in 2021, I purged non-interactive followers and wanted to keep up with that, but it became too time-consuming. My follower count has gone way up, but unsurprisingly that hasn’t changed the number of likes and comments, since most new follows are for marketing purposes, not interaction. I hope to get more followers who read, like, and comment, as we all do. Else why have a blog?
I’ll probably post a monthly stats summary for May on June 1, or not. It’s getting kind of boring.
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Today Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday theme is rap/hip-hop, and I don’t know of any song in those genres I like or want to share here. So I went to the handy-dandy number generator instead and told it to choose a number between 1 and 1047, which is how many songs I have in my YouTube playlist. It came up with 508, a nice number, and also the number of “If Not For You” sung by Bryan Ferry.
If not for you
Babe, I couldn’t find the door
I couldn’t even see the floor
I’d be sad and blue
If not for you
Are these lyrics about my prescription glasses? I think so!
Bob Dylan wrote this song for his 1970 album New Morning. It went with his theme at the time of being content with a simple life, family, and the pleasures of nature. George Harrison did a cover as well as Olivia Newton-John, in 1970 and 1971, respectively. It became ONJ’s first hit single and the title track to her album If Not For You. Dylan and Harrison performed a duet of INFY for The Concert for Bangladesh in 1972. (All info from Wikipedia.)
If not for you my sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
And you know it’s true
Many other artists have covered this song: Rod Stewart, Richie Havens, Glen Campbell, et al. I particularly enjoy Bryan Ferry’s voice and version, so that’s the one I am sharing today (plus it’s No. 508). Ferry recorded his take of the song for his 2007 album Dylanesque, which contains 10 covers of Bob Dylan songs and one song that Dylan covered himself. Enjoy!
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Golden ratio
Natural geometry
Field of abundance
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Haiku written for the Naturalist Weekly (zooming technique).
My heart has sunk into the sea
This rainbow offers no delight
My lover won’t return to me
My heart has sunk into the sea
I waited here so helplessly
A vicious storm raged through the night
My heart has sunk into the sea
This rainbow offers no delight
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Triolet written for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday (sunk).
My daughter informed me that it is Shavuot, a Jewish holiday. It began at sunset on May 25 and will end at sunset on May 27. It falls on various dates on “regular” calendars, since it is celebrated seven weeks after the second Passover seder, and Passover dates vary too. Supposedly, Shavuot is when we received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Since I am not observant, I won’t be staying up all night to study Jewish texts, but I am in favor of the traditional eating of dairy in the form of cheesecake. I will look for one at the grocery store early tomorrow morning for my game night. You didn’t think I was going to make one myself, did you? LOL!
Bing’s image creator took quite a while to generate a cheesecake picture that I liked. It’s definitely a process sometimes, and you have to be patient. The initial ones were very dark and boring, so I added flowers, as it is also traditional on Shavuot to decorate with a floral theme. The pics with entire cakes were often completely obscured with flowers, or the cake was oddly off-center. Many were at a weird angle as if we were seeing them from a ladder. I have no clue regarding the logic of AI, but I do know that you will eventually get a good result, if you are willing to keep trying different phrases. Even switching from “blueberry cheesecake” to “cheesecake with blueberries” helped a lot.
The reason I have been obsessed with using AI for images, besides it being so much fun, is because these images hardly take up any media storage space. A month ago, I had used up nine percent of my space; since then I’ve added about 45 AI photos, and I am still at nine percent! It’s a blast to create a new image for each post rather than make do with what I have to save space or monkey around with a smallifier (tech term).
Enjoy your weekend, everyone!
~*~
©️2023 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted.
Written for Friday Faithfuls at MLMM, hosted by Jim, where he asks us to write something about May 26.
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Light Motifs II 